Month: November 2015

She struggled to breath as the Benz pinned her to the seat. It rocketed up the on ramp of I-95 faster than she could believe possible. Her eyes were wide as saucers and her fingers ached with the death grip she put on the wheel. Tail lights flew by her like they were backing up their own carports recklessly. She glanced down at the speedometer and said, “No shit?”, as she saw it reading one hundred twenty six miles per hour.

She took her foot of the gas and let the big German coupe idle back to a reasonable speed. She was surprised not nearly as much by the violence of the acceleration, it left her breathless and her head was swimming slightly, but at how smooth it was. Like having an elephant in velvet underpants dive onto her chest.

She was not prepared for it. Driving in circles in her mother’s beat up LeSabre had not prepared her for this monstrosity. She smiled and dipped into the accelerator again, and grunted as the elephant bounded into her chest. Cars began whizzing by her once again. White lines began to blur into a single line as cars became stationary fence posts on a country road zipping by her. She weaved from the left lane to the right and then back again, moving between the cars like a running back through linebackers, occasionally emerging on wide open swaths where she would pour the throttle down and pin it firmly to the floor. Her entire world reduced to the two lanes ahead of her and the narrow shoulders.

She eased from the throttle as cars gathered on the horizon again. She didn’t dare look down at the speedometer now, the time it would take to look down and back up, she would cover an entire football field at least, more? She didn’t know. She tapped the brakes to eat up the speed, the nose dove and bobbed to the right. She felt the Taco Bell she had for lunch turn to ice water in her gut as it shifted down and right. That couldn’t be good. A line of three sets of tail lights were approaching up to her right, she would back it down to a sane speed and cruise the rest of the way home.

She thought that she could drop the car off in one of the abandoned boat houses east of her neighborhood, and walk home. Tomorrow she could talk to one of Roger’s cousin’s about picking it up and taking it to a chop shop. That would be a quick profit for her. She figured that she could get three or four thousand for it, not even close to what this car was worth, but for an hours worth of work, it wasn’t a bad rate. That would pad what Roger would be able to extract from Randy’s accounts after he exposed the lousy wife beating piece of shit.

“Fuck me,” Corey hissed at herself as the last car in the line of three decided to pass and changed into her lane. She slammed the brakes and the Benz nosed over hard and veered to the right. Instead of fighting it she followed it. Skimming behind the lane changing asshole and nearly colliding with the next vehicle.

She weaved out onto the shoulder, and let off the brake. The car gave her its nose back and she straightened and goosed the throttle and bolted past it and the next car. Her jaw dropped and the elephant that had been sitting on her chest settled into her bowels as she realized that the third car was a Florida State Patrol cruiser. The other two had been running slow, pacing it, so as not to get pulled over.

She flew by it in a blur on the shoulder, fully in the throttle trying to get by before she reached the barriers of the oncoming overpass. Blue and red lights began strobing before she passed him. She knew her night was over, and probably her life as well.

I have lived in Pueblo for roughly eight and a half years. It’s a great place filled with great people, and I love it here. In spite of that, there’s been a hole here, something that’s always been missing. Something just a smidge off, like that kitchen counter I installed that the pencils always roll off of. It needed something. It needed homebrew store. I don’t say needed as some sense of hyperbole, when you have spent ten hours making beer and your yeast stalls out; you need a new pack of yeast. That generally means a trip up to Colorado Springs, or worse going on the internet and hoping your hops & yeast survive the August heat.

I am so happy to that era homebrew isolation is at a close. Troy Rahner and his wife, Alicia, opened the doors on this weekend of their homebrew shop Rahner Shine Homebrew Supply.

Our Club was lucky enough to check out the shop early, and it looks like we should be able to hold our monthly meetings there going forward. I am so happy to have a partnership with Troy’s new shop.

Education is at the core of what our club does. Troy gave a talk on chilling wort in the summer months and what sorts of advantages can be gained using a pre-chiller with your immersion chiller .

Very excited with how the shop looks. Much more excited to have a partnership with someone that has such a strong passion for brewing and homebrew, like Troy, here in town.

There are several things that I look forward to every year, living in Colorado . The Aspens changing colors in October, elk hunting, first snow fall, but beer festival season is one of my favorite times of year. With over a dozen festivals along the Front Range from early spring to late fall there is always something beer related going on. From the massive Great American Beer Festival, to the outlandish Rails and Ales (if you’ve never been to a beer festival on a mountain top, what are you doing with your life?) . But I think the one that I look forward to the most every year is the All Colorado Beer Festival in Colorado Springs.

It was the first beer festival that my wife and I went to, and it is special to me. Looking back, it was a small festival; with no more than two dozen brewers. There were all the local brewers, and even a few from far flung Denver. We had as much fun finding the really good beers as we did finding the terrible ones. Trust me, no matter what fest I go to, there is always some bad beer. My wife is a masochist and a sadist, finding one and her face contorts in anguish. Then she looks at me, and says, “This is terrible! Here try it.”

I Love This Festival. It’s like an old friend that I get to see only occasionally.

It has grown considerably since our first trip, boasting nearly eighty breweries this year. It is gratifying to see the growth in the event and the number of returning faces. Below are some photos. If you’re looking for a fun, local beer fest next year, keep the All Colorado Beer Festival on your calendar for 2016.